Here’s what you do, you go over to the ABA Blawg 100, and then you register to vote. It just requires entering a name, e-mail, and a password. There isn’t the annoying step of waiting for a confirmation e-mail and all that (which also means you don’t have to give them your real e-mail, if you’re worried about getting spammed).

I was going to start this off by saying you shouldn’t go to law school because there’s no value added, but I figured that was too much hyperbole, and in today’s world, defenders of the law school system (ie: professors) like to dismiss any argument that is in the slightest bit off point rather than giving them the benefit of a savings clause, because, as we know, law professors aren’t neutral arbiters of the value of law school, they are advocates.

Anyways, little value added. It’s long been accepted that law school doesn’t prepare you to immediately practice law. It merely supposes to prepare you to learn how to practice law. It doesn’t prepare you for the bar exam either. Sure, some of your classes may be relevant, but your education won’t be broad enough to save you the expense of a bar review course, unless of course you somehow managed to squeeze Trusts and Estates, Criminal Procedure, and Commercial Paper all into your law school schedule, in which case, sorry to hear you wasted 3 years of your life when you could have just wasted 3 months with BarBri.

There are two values that law school defenders like to say that it adds, that it “teaches you to think like a lawyer,” and that it makes you generally more appealing to a wide variety of employers, from defense department contract administration to health care industry contract administration.

Time once again for my signature break down of Cosmo’s ridiculous sex lists:

The August issue of Cosmo asked just over 2,600 guys to rate 50 different sex moves. Cosmo has a pretty solid record of giving women advice so bad it would fix Tiger Woods’s golf game, so you’d think going to actual guys for answers would produce extremely good responses. But, Cosmo didn’t ask just any guys: “we went straight to the source, 2,603 horny guys.”

Bad choice. Horny guys are morons and are inclined to say that they’re turned on by just about anything.

A study at Berkeley found that when not aroused, 13% of men think it could be fun to have sex with someone who is extremely fat. When aroused, the number jumped to 24%, an 85% increase. There was a 55% increase in men who found shoes erotic when aroused; a 75% increase in men who could see themselves having sex with another man; a 229% increase in men who could find a 60 year old attractive; a 100% increase in men who could find a 12 year old girl attractive; and, a 167% increase in the number of men who would be down for bestiality.

In order to understand what will actually work on your guy, not just what weird shit he’ll say he’s in to while in heat, we have to dig just a little deeper than Cosmo’s analytical model of (no lie) Smiley Face/Sad Face, represented after each move.

The moves are broken down into six categories: Seduction, Kissing, Foreplay, Oral, Sex, and Naughty Bonus Moves. (Cosmo does not specify how to unlock the bonus moves.)

Seduction

1. Calling him while you’re masturbating, giving him a preview of the moans you’re going to make later that night. :-D

It’ll be a turn on at the time. But potentially a huge disappointment when he comes over later and you’ve already worn yourself out. You get mad when he finishes early, so think how pissed he’ll be when you’re done before he even shows up.

2. Asking him to give you a lap dance. :-(

Giving you a lap dance isn’t really a turn on for us, but if we’re indifferent and you think you’ll like it, we’ll go for it. The problem is about a minute into the routine, it’ll be pretty clear it doesn’t do anything for you either, and now it’s just a game of awkward chicken, seeing who caves in first.

3. Putting on a playlist of slow love songs to set the mood. :-/

The music won’t really be a turn for men in and of itself. But the subtext of “hey handsome, you’re totally getting laid tonight,” that’s something we really like to hear, even if it’s Enya saying it.

4. Putting on a playlist of rap and hip-hop songs to set the mood. :-(

“Damn homey, in high school you was the man homey. The f*ck happened to you?” The horny Cosmo men get this one right. Pretty much the last thing we want to hear during sex is 50 Cent talking about how he sodomizes other men. It gets us jealous.

5. Drawing a bubble bath and offering to wash his body before you have sex. :-D

A bubble bath sounds sexy, but the cramped space makes shower sex look easy. This is just going to result in a lot of sloshing and a wet bathroom floor that you’ll expect us to clean up because you “went to the trouble of drawing the bath.”

6. Taking his hand and pressing it against your underwear so he can feel how horny you are. :-D

Nothing wrong here. …Except that it’s mislabeled. If this is seduction, what the hell is foreplay?

7. Decorating the bed with rose petals and lighting a bunch of candles. :-/

Men don’t really care about stock romantic props like this. But, candle light is extremely flattering. When you look good, we’re happy. Even better, when you look good, you’re happy, and that makes you more confident, which leads you to do more things that make us happy. Everybody wins, especially us.

The new and final season of Entourage is starting up next month, and I wanted to make a prediction about what will happen. Why?

Because if I’m right, I can use this post as evidence of my intellect and prescience. And, if I’m wrong, the graveyard rule applies, and no one will give a fuck.

So here we go: Vinny Chase’s career as an actor will be over.

And here’s why:

At the start of the series, it was a story about a hot shot young actor, and three friends who mooched off of him. E was Vinny’s manager, Turtle worked as his gopher, and Drama used Vinny’s stardom to reinvigorate his own career (and used his money to float him financially). The entire series has been a progression of the characters as they outgrow their need for Vinny. Turtle gets into the rap artist management biz, then goes to college for a business degree, then starts his sexy driver service, then gets into the tequila business; he hasn’t been successful, but he’s been working towards becoming his own man. Drama has a series of increasingly successful acting jobs, going from small rolls in Vinny’s movies, to a quickly canceled show, and finally to a green lit show he’s starring in that looks like it will last the rest of the series. And of course E, he’s picked up a couple extra clients, lost them, but is now working at firm where it’s clear his future does not even require keeping Vinny as a client.

The only character that has stagnated has been Vinny. He basically served as a plot device. The story is primarily about Eric. Vinny might be the movie star, but Eric is the protagonist. In addition to evolving a lot more than Vinny, just look at the plot. Everything that Vinny is involved in, Eric is also at the center of. But, there’s plenty of stuff that goes on in E’s life that doesn’t concern Vinny one bit.

Vinny is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Only in season 7 did he get a meaningful character development. For all the ups and downs of his career, he has been mainly a passenger. Eric is the one who sets things in motion and deals with the consequences.

So, the question is, in the end, what meaningful resolution could there be? Eric, Turtle and Drama will each find their way. Eric will likely become a partner of a management company, Drama will have his show renewed, and Turtle will …find something, probably not the tequila business; I’m thinking something new, or something that was only a small part of an earlier episode, like party promoting.

But Vinny? He’s still a young actor. Even if he gets back on his feet, that just puts him back where he’s been so many times before. That’s not very compelling. The only direction for his career to go is down. I don’t think it will be the drug thing. My best guess is that he dies, and at the end of the series, the characters mourn his death, but also realize that they no longer need him to live.

As soon as he is no longer needed, he dies. Consider it a metaphor for Hollywood.

Maybe not death, but definitely something that permanently ends his career. Perhaps prison. Either way, the end of the series will be the entourage realizing that their lives go on.

It was easy, it was worth it, and looking back, I should have done it more.

The last exam of first semester was Civil Procedure. That was the tough class for my section. Every group of 1Ls has the “tough class.” The one with the professor everyone is intimidated by. The one they spend so much time studying for that they show up to other classes unprepared. In The Paper Chase, the tough class is Contracts with Kingsfield.

Civil Procedure with Samuel Issacharoff was our tough class. It wasn’t the “Kingsfield” of our 1L year though. Our equivalent of Kingsfield, the professor students have heard about before even applying to law school, was Arthur Miller, the professor on whom Perini is based in Scott Turow’s 1L. Arthur Miller also taught civil procedure, but to a different group of students, chosen at random.

Despite the tens of thousands of dollars you pay in tuition to your law school, it’s often a crapshoot like that. Some people will take a class from a legendary professor and gain stories to tell on interviews or around the water cooler later in life. Other people get the B squad. Not that NYU’s B squad was at all bad. But, “Yeah, Arthur Miller was teaching civ pro when I was there, …I had someone else though” isn’t really a compelling story. The Paper Chase without Kingsfield is not The Paper Chase.

Despite not being Arthur Miller, Issacharoff was still the terrifying professor for our section. That makes some people terrified of the exam. They’re scared of every exam, but really on edge about the tough professor’s test. With the curve though, it doesn’t really matter. A hard exam is hard for everyone. Your performance is relative to the performance of your classmates.

It’s been a while, but finally we are back with another reasons to go to law school contender. Let’s remind everyone of the rules:

1. You need two reasons.

2. They must be good reasons (good enough to overcome the expenses).

3. They must be for going to law school.

So, without any further ado, here we go:

I’m a new reader of your blog, first reading your comments on bitter lawyer and then reading more from your own website, and after seeing the other responses I decided to state my two reasons for attending law school and let you see how they stack.

First I’ll say the weaker reason, which is that I believe from the basic information I’ve gathered about lawyers that I would be good as a litigator. I enjoy researching and formulating arguments to difficult issues as well as am comfortable preparing papers, or in the future briefs, for said arguments. I am a comfortable public speaker and generally persuasive in a factual as well as traditional communication sense (persuasion based on naturally unreasonable human responses such as emotional situations). I also am well adjusted to deadlines and finishing work as well as performing under pressure which from my understanding is of utmost importance for a litigator.

My second reason continues the first, I am genuinely interested in being a lawyer. My undergraduate degree was political science with a pre-law concentration. I spent a year out of school to pay a little back on my loans and thus establish some credit, which I had not done before undergrad. I also worked at the GA Department of Revenue so I could gain some, if only minor, experience. I plan on either going into the Judge Advocate General program with the Navy or a local District Attorney’s office after law school, preferably doing summer associate and externships with either during my 2L and 3L beforehand. After several years, most likely a minimum of 4 years, I plan to apply to be an Assistant US Attorney.

The main downside is the debt that I will be incurring and the general understanding that most government sector jobs don’t pay nearly as much as private sector jobs. I slacked off in some of my core classes and it dragged my GPA down so I did not receive a scholarship for my first upcoming year and I plan on attending a 3rd tier school, but for me the money (and debt I will be burdened with) are an expensive but acceptable loss in exchange for me learning the skills and gaining the ability to practice law. Also, since I plan on going into what is considered public interest careers, I will, if I haven’t paid off my debt beforehand, plan on taking advantage of new programs to clear federal loans after 10 years of public interest work.

So in finishing, my first reason is that I have what I believe to be the skill sets that traditionally fit a lawyer, and my second reason is that I plan on and desire to be a lawyer after graduating. I know these 2 reasons work in conjunction but they are my reasons for going to law school since, as many people say including yourself in previous blogs, law school only really prepares you to be a lawyer.

Mercer University School of Law

US News #127, $35,695/yr

I really hope I didn’t ever say law school only prepares you to be a lawyer. That would be false. It doesn’t even prepare you to be a lawyer. What it does is let you check off a very important box allowing you to sit for the bar exam, an exam law school doesn’t prepare you for. Law school does open the road to becoming a lawyer, but it hardly prepares you to be a lawyer. But, on to your reasons.

1. I’ll Be Good at It

Not the worst reason in the world. People are generally happier doing jobs that they are good at. Not that hard to understand that we’d rather excel than struggle. The trouble with using this as a reason for going to law school is that it’s very hard to predict what actually being a lawyer is like. When you look at what lawyers do and then compare it to your skillset, it’s easy to miss the mundane day-to-day tasks, and also easy to not comprehend the repetitive nature of it all. You’ll spend more time filing motions for a continuance as a right than you will research novel arguments.

But, assuming you are exactly as dull and mechanical as you portray yourself to be, I’ll count this as a reason for going to law school. It would be a very good reason if you were prescient, but since it’s impossible to anticipate how you’ll really enjoy law, we’ll give this a B- (the curve helped you out a bit here).

2. I Really Want to Be a Government Prosecutor

You plan on getting into JAG? AHAHAHAHAHAHA!

No, no, sorry, that was-AHAHHAHAHA!

Seriously, if there’s not already a uniform hanging in your closet, you have as good of odds of getting into JAG as you do getting a Supreme Court clerkship. Those are insanely competitive jobs. It’s also a pretty miserable job your first few years, being shipped around to different air force posts in random hick towns, helping soldiers on their way to Afghanistan prepare their wills, and occasionally prosecuting a PFC for possession of a controlled substance.

But, let’s look at your second choice of jobs, working for the local DA.

Ahahahahaha!

You’ll notice I didn’t laugh quite so loudly. This is a much easier job to get, but still very, very tough. Consider that you’re going to be competing against students from UGA and UA (tied at #35), Emory (#30), Vanderbilt (#16), UVA (#9), Knoxville (#56), Georgia State (#61), and a bunch of kids from lower ranked schools, like Cumberland (#127) and John Marshall (#140).

The legal market is going to be a very scary place for at least the next 5 years, and there’s a good chance it will never fully recover. That means you’re going to be competing against not just the kid from Atlanta who went to UVA and really wants to be a state prosecutor when he graduates, but also the kid from Atlanta who went to UVA hoping to get a job in big law, but is looking to the government as a backup.

If you were getting a very nice scholarship from a T-14, I’d think you’d actually have some decent reasons for going to law school, but the fact of the matter is Mercer is not going to help you fulfill your dreams. Fewer than half their students have a job lined up at graduation, any job.

At 9 months after graduation, only 14.5% of Mercer grads have any job with the government. Only 58.9% of grads have a full time law job. The numbers don’t lie, it’s simply a bad bet.

It’s strange the things from law school that you remember, and the things you don’t. The morning after the Halloween party (dubbed the Fall Ball, because it never fell on Halloween) we had torts. I can’t even remember what day of the week it was. My best guess is Friday, since Thursday is a fairly common night for drinking and rabble rousing. But, it could have also been Monday.

I don’t even remember what the lecture for that torts class was. The only reason I remember having a torts class that day is because a student two rows in front of me vomited in class.

He didn’t even try to get out of the room. He just sat in his seat, and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the laptop and text book of the kid sitting next to him. If it had been any other student, I might not have remembered who it was, just as I don’t remember the victim in the incident. But, our classroom vomiter always had this sickly paleness about him. The way he looked, it’s amazing he ever made it through any class without blowing chunks.

The Juris Doctors were created by law schools.
They were laid off.
They devolved.
They look and feel human.
Some are programmed to think they are human.
There are many copies.
And they don't have a plan.